


Control

by newtgeiszler (lizardkid)



Category: Lost
Genre: Blow Jobs, Emotional Damage Up To Here, Emotional Manipulation, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Rat Men Being Sexy And Evil, Slurs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:28:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26983639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizardkid/pseuds/newtgeiszler
Summary: Benjamin Linus liked to unravel people.
Relationships: Benjamin Linus/Ethan Rom, Benjamin Linus/Jack Shephard, Benjamin Linus/John Locke, James "Sawyer" Ford/Benjamin Linus, James "Sawyer" Ford/Jack Shephard, Kate Austen/Jack Shephard, Tom Friendly/Benjamin Linus
Comments: 15
Kudos: 22





	1. Jack

**Author's Note:**

> Alternatively titled: Five Blowjobs and One Kiss.

"Jack?" Ben uttered, making a show of pretending to rub his eyes and stifle a yawn.

Jack hovered in the doorway, nervous and ghostlike. "I woke you.” At least he had the decency to look ashamed. “Sorry."

While Jack deliberated whether to step into the prison cell of a room, Ben blinked against the bright light that filtered in from the main quarters and struggled into a sitting position on the hard mattress. Jack’s tall form partially obscured the incandescence and cast a long shadow along the hard concrete floor, but it was still more light than Ben had seen in a while.The thin crack that filtered in beneath the door did very little for him. It drove him up the wall, in fact. It was impossible to sleep. Every time he started to nod off, the light outside would flick on, or voices would disturb him, or he’d become hyper-aware of the rope chafing his wrists.

Ben missed his bed and his books. And bacon, and birdsong, and plenty of other B-nouns, too.

Hopefully, this game would prove fruitful enough to be worth the loss of his creature comforts. So far he'd learnt very little, but Ben was confident he could harvest something useful from these people soon. It was a slow process sometimes.

“How’s that wound treating you, Henry?” Jack said, finally stepping into the room fully and flicking the lights on, causing Ben to wince again. They powered up slowly with a low hum. His expression was conflicted and he struggled to meet Ben’s eye. After a few moments of deliberation, Jack swung the door closed and the hefty _thunk_ of iron against iron weighed on both of them, the tangible proof of a decision made. 

Still, Jack looked undecided and nervous. Uncomfortable with whatever decision he’d made. Perhaps reassuring himself that it was not final.

Ben only watched him as Henry, the passive victim, at the mercy of Jack's every whim. Jack's indecision seemed to Ben to be an elaborate attempt to convince him of something, though he could not yet tell what.

“It hurts,” Ben replied dryly. “A lot.”

Jack sighed and placed a hand on his hip. “Can I take a look?”

A disbelieving huff of breath escaped Ben. “Be my guest.” Beneath the words, the unspoken question: _Do I have a choice?_

As Jack sidled closer, Ben’s face was as impassive as ever. There was a medical bag in Jack's other hand and Ben’s eyes twitched into a brief squint as he watched Jack bounce it absent-mindedly. 

“So, are you a real doctor or just the man with the medkit?”

With an innocent arch of his brow and a nervous smile, Ben made the question sound as innocuous as if he were asking about the weather. Just a clumsy attempt at humour. A deeper meaning would be Jack’s own devising, his own demons reading something into nothing. In realising this, sweet Henry would seem all the more innocent.

And Jack would feel all the less sure of himself. 

Ben watched those very thoughts pass through Jack’s mind — the flicker of suspicion on his face, the scowl, the brief moment of shock, the deliberation, the doubt, the confusion.

The gas lit. The stage set. Enter innocence, stage left.

“Jack?”

“Um, yeah, I’m a real doctor. A— A surgeon, actually. Spinal surgeon.” 

Ben’s eyes were wide and curious. “That sounds like a very difficult job.”

A strange smile twisted onto Jack’s face as he glanced away: wide and false, not quite reaching his eyes, which crinkled handsomely nonetheless. He was sweating.

“Well, only when I mess up.”

Ben returned his smile: reassuring and honest, appreciative of the joke and recognising it as a peace offering.

“I guess it’s a good thing you only have to change my bandage then.” 

It was another attempt at making light of Henry’s hopeless situation. He wanted Jack to pity him, to pity Henry. He wanted to see Henry's misguided attempts at optimism and doubt himself for holding such a gentle, trusting, misunderstood man hostage.

Of course, he also wanted Jack to succumb to the darkest parts of himself, to disappoint himself, to realise he was not the man he thought he was.

Nobody was.

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

In a matter of seconds, Jack was crouched before him, his fingers touching Ben’s shoulder. The movement was so quick and unexpected that Ben didn’t have time to prepare a response and his eyes fluttered shut of their own accord. A little unintended glimmer of truth, but something that would hopefully make his act all the more convincing. It mattered little either way, though. It was what he would’ve done, had he the time to plan it. 

“Does that hurt?” Jack asked, looking up at him with genuine concern. The sweat made his eyelashes damp and the fluorescent light made his skin look palid. It was charming, in its own way. Somehow it suited him. 

“No.”

The intensity in Jack’s eyes dimmed, just a little, and Ben exhaled a slow breath when he looked away to rummage in the bag. He hoped Jack didn’t see the way he swallowed a little harder than intended, his perfect façade cracking for just a moment.

By the time Jack met his eye, Ben was in control again.

"Can I ask you a question, Jack?"

With his hands poised over Ben's shirt, Jack's expression changed when he met his eye, twisting into a grimace. “Hold your shirt down, like this," he ordered, as if Ben hadn’t spoken.

Jack used two fingers to pull down Ben's torn shirt and reveal more of his shoulder. Wordlessly, Ben mimicked the action, and Jack let go.

"Okay," Jack said.

Ben blinked owlishly. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing…?”

“Why are you bothering to treat my wounds when your friends are only going to make a mess of me again?”

Ben always chose his words carefully, but he was especially proud of that last line. The subtle emphasis on _mess_. Jack could make a mess of him, too. If he wanted. A smug wave rolled through him when Jack exhaled slowly, his breath ghosting over Ben’s exposed skin. It took real effort not to smirk.

When no response came, they lapsed back into silence, and the sound of Jack peeling away the adhesive filled the room. 

“It just seems counterintuitive is all.”

“Does it,” Jack said flatly.

“I mean, if I were going to torture someone for information, I wouldn’t stitch them back up every time.” Ben’s eyes were wide, still earnest, speaking as if reciting from a textbook. “It defeats the purpose of torture,” he said. “Surely?”

“You didn’t get this one from Sayid.”

The removal of the cloth that had been haphazardly fixed to his skin made Ben shudder a little; the stale air pressing close, exposing him. The second piece of adhesive tape soon followed the first and the stickiness caught on his chest hair. Ben gasped quietly. It was just a breathy little sound, soft like wind through leaves, or the jingle of a small bell, but the suddenness alarmed Jack. From the corner of his eye, he saw the way Jack’s eyes locked onto him, the way he frowned, looked away quickly. 

“Sorry,” Jack said, even as his fingers pressed against the wound in Ben’s shoulder. Ben wondered if Jack was doing it intentionally to make him wince, if that were something Jack enjoyed. 

Despite all the files and the facts and the espionage, Ben had still not quite been prepared to meet Jack in person. Under the surface, under the good man pretence, something very dark simmered. Ben recognised it as the same violence and thirst for control that cast its long shadow over his own heart. The difference was that Ben embraced it, while Jack laboured fruitlessly under the delusion that he could hold it at bay, all that pent up anger and domination. 

Still, the gentleness of his hands was very convincing. He wondered how many people Jack had convinced, how many he'd seduced, with nothing but gentle touches to prove his goodness.

Ben’s eyes fluttered closed again when he felt the sting of antiseptic, an uncomfortable contrast again Jack’s warm skin on his. He huffed a breath of laughter and waited for Jack to take the bait.

On cue, Jack asked, “What?”

“Nothing. It’s just...” Ben smiled to himself, though the smile was really for Jack. “It’s just... it’s been so long since anyone touched me. Since Jennifer...”

When his eyes opened, Jack was looking at him sharply. Warily.

“Sorry,” Ben said with a nervous smile, his voice cracking at the thought of his dead wife. “That must sound silly to you. I’m sure you don’t know what I mean. You’re not alone like I was.”

Slowly, very slowly, Jack smiled a shaky smile, his feet landing on slightly more solid ground.

“At the moment, everyone’s a little more preoccupied with surviving,” Jack told him.

“Sure,” Ben said with a nod, looking abashed. “Obviously. I guess I just meant, you know…" A nervous shrug, his voice speeding up slightly, growing excited. "The little things. Brushing shoulders with someone, holding hands, hugging your friends. Hell, I even found myself missing being squished against strangers on the subway. It’s incredible, Jack, the things you take for granted when you’ve got no-one.”

With sick pleasure, Ben watched the way Jack licked his lips nervously, frowning and blinking as if in concentration while he held the fresh piece of cloth against Ben’s shoulder. Jack rested the sharp point of his elbow against Ben’s thigh to steady his hand; an oddly intimate gesture that Ben took to be a sign Jack trusted him. That was good. The contact was easy to relax into. Easy to enjoy, despite all the lies. Ben liked being touched as much as anyone, that much didn’t need to be faked. 

“I thought you were rich,” Jack said suddenly, startling Ben from his thoughts. 

“I was rich,” Ben said, a little too defensively, “before I crashed on this island. Who knows if I’ll still be rich when I get back.”

“What’s a rich person doing riding the subway?”

Jack had paused his ministrations and was now looking directly at Ben, waiting expectantly. The adhesive tape not yet been applied, the pressure of Jack’s fingers against his shoulder feeling a little more forceful than it had previously.

“I,” Ben began, laughing a little as though the question were absurd, passing the frown off as disbelieving, “I wasn’t always rich, Jack.”

“When did you work in New York?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You said you were from Minnesota.”

“I am from Minnesota. Born and raised. Fairbanks, St. Louis County, Minnesota. I moved to New York City for work, same as most of the people who move there.”

Jack stared at him, at the indignation on his face. A beat passed, another, and another. And then Jack’s head dropped suddenly, and he was laughing again, that strange laugh and big fake smile, wide like a shark, rows and rows of sharp, white teeth.

“Alright,” was all he said. He pinned the cloth in place with adhesive tape with mechanical precision: hold, press, cut; hold, press, cut. 

Ben shook his head. 

“Is that what this is, Jack? Another interrogation?”

“No, this is— I’m just trying to—”

With his free hand, Jack rubbed at his temple. Words escaped him. This was their fearless leader? Pale, sweating, stammering? 

“It’s okay, Jack.” Ben would throw him a bone. “You’re scared. I can’t say I wouldn’t act similarly if someone had threatened J…” His throat closed up around the name and he looked away quickly, trying not to cry. Pretending to try, at least.

Jack looked up at him, and what he saw was exactly what Ben wanted him to see: Henry Gale, a widower in a strange place, hands bound with rope, obligingly answering the questions of people he’d never met and likely didn’t trust.

“How did you meet her?”

A pained line indented his brow as he looked up. “What?”

“Jennifer, your wife. How did you meet?”

Ben stared at him a moment longer — expression distrusting. “Is this an interrogation question or an attempt to befriend me?”

Jack laughed, his head rolling forward to look briefly at the ground, but didn’t respond.

When the answer came to him, Ben could not help but huff a breath of laughter himself. “We met at a gay bar, if you can believe it.”

The way Jack's demeanour changed, just slightly, fuelled him. It was an almost imperceptible twitch of muscle, a tension in the jaw, but Ben saw what many wouldn't.

“In New York City…” He continued to smile at the supposed memory, eyes glazing over as he stared into the middle distance, conjuring an image of a young woman in Manhattan, making it believable. “1979. A cold winter. It always is in New York, but that winter… Well, it was really something.” He laughed a little, breaking the spell momentarily and looking to Jack for approval.

Jack only watched him with guarded curiosity. 

“Billy’s, it was called,” Ben continued, frowning with the effort of remembering. “Somewhere in Chelsea. Have you ever been to Chelsea, Jack?”

Blinking back into himself, Jack shook his head, growing more certain throughout the movement.

“It’s so… Charismatic. If a city can be charismatic. And the nightlife… I was twenty-five, and still something of an outsider, but some friends I’d known in college were visiting and dragged me out. I was a recluse, you see. I woke up, caught the subway, went to work, ate my lunch, sat at my desk, caught the subway, watched TV… Went to sleep.”

Ben sighed and deflated, immersed in his story but momentarily standing outside of it, looking at his false past with pity. It wasn’t all that different. In fact, he felt jealous of this version of himself; the version that lived in a city, had friends, had sex with strangers.

“Anyway. They called me up. It might surprise you that I did some, um, experimenting in college, and these guys, they were… Well, we were all…” 

Risking a glance at Jack’s face, he saw well-hidden disgust. He could practically hear the word bouncing around inside the doctor’s brain.

 _Queers_.

“They took me out,” he said, to distract from the faint but very real panic he felt in his gut at that look. “They took me to Billy’s. And we danced. And I spilt my drink all over her, this stranger on the dance floor. She had this… angelic smile. When she looked at you, you felt as though you had suddenly been absolved of all sin. Like you were forgiven.”

 _God,_ Ben thought, _nobody talks like that_. But Jack, so eager to be the man who saw the best in everyone, looked convinced.

“I insisted on helping her get cleaned up, and then we got talking, and then…” Ben swallowed thickly. “She was friends with some local lesbians and that’s why she was there. I told her I was the same, that I’d gone with Michael and Anthony because I wanted to be supportive. It became a running joke amongst our friends that two straight people found love in a gay bar.” A deep intake of breath, and then the finishing touch. “I never told her the truth.”

The look on Jack’s face was pained and pinched. When he looked at Ben, he was bewildered, and anger simmered beneath the confusion. The small room made him look larger than he was. 

“Why are you telling _me_ the truth, Henry?” he asked evenly, each word measured and cut with precision, a surgeon's calm in the face of distress.

Ben realised there were tears in his eyes, and he blinked them away. “Because I had to tell someone, Jack.”

*

An hour later, Jack returned. He had slunk away quiet and bemused, but returned with renewed determination, brow a hard line of resolve. Ben knew what was coming. He had manufactured it himself.

The door shut decisively, the lights blinkered on, sweat still clung to Jack. It coated his chest and his arms and his neck, gathered in patches on his sleeveless t-shirt, dripped from his forehead. It looked as if he'd gone for a run.

“Jack,” Ben said. “To what do I owe the—”

“How did you know?”

There was a very careful and deliberate pause. “Know what?”

“Know…” Jack tried, agitated, the word catching in his throat. “Know that you were…”

Ben was patient. He wanted Jack to say it himself, but did not want to risk Jack bolting out of panic. “Attracted to men?”

An abortive movement that Ben assumed to be a nod was his only response. 

“I guess I just knew. There comes a point where you can’t hide it anymore, not even from yourself.”

“Did you love her?” Jack asked, frantic.

“Jennifer?”

“Yes!” His voice was a bellow now, the decibels climbing as he thrashed around inside of himself. “Did you _love_ her?”

Ben glared at him, outraged and indignant, but still the prisoner. “Of course I _loved_ her,” Ben said, voice shaking, but remaining calm. Compared to Jack, his voice sounded distant, as if it were passing through water or glass rather than air. “I’ll always love her. How could you even ask me that? Why are you so angry all of a sudden?”

Jack made a face. His hands were on his hips. Arms bulging. He looked like he was going to cry.

Eventually, Ben gathered his expression into dawning realisation, his mouth opening into an 'o' of understanding. “Oh.”

Relief washed over Jack's face when he realised he would not have to say it himself, and Ben felt as though he were standing right on the edge of something, like a predator tensing before it pounced. Every muscle poised and ready.

Still, Jack clung to his safety rope of ignorance, scowling at him. “What?”

“Jack,” Ben said slowly, mustering an empathetic expression. “I know it’s confusing. But trust me, it gets—”

“If you say it gets better to me, Henry,” Jack cut in, barking another of his fake laughs and startling Ben into silence. “I don’t need a therapist.” The mirth drained from his face and he stared hard at his prisoner. 

But there it was: there was the confession; or, as close to a confession as Ben was going to get.

This was the moment. This was it. 

“What _do_ you need, Jack?”

Ben’s bright blue eyes were wide, his expression open, his voice coaxing Jack toward him like a siren sending a sailor careening off course. Ever a puppet, Jack stepped toward him. _It must be torture_ , Ben thought: to have a willing participant in bondage, after weeks of stress and tension, with no relief in sight. It must have been torture to know he wanted it and to feel awful for wanting it, for wanting not just the act but wanting _him_. Did Jack like men? Ben neither knew nor cared. What mattered was that Jack was not sure and it made him weak, exploitable.

What mattered was that he had not gone to the man he ought to go to — he had come to Ben. This would be his first experience of it. Ben would own it. He would own this part of Jack forever.

Ben kept his face impassive, though his muscles were itching to twitch into a raised eyebrow. 

“I want…”

There were tears in Jack’s eyes, now, real tears — they mingled with sweat and sea water. He blinked them away. His whole body was tense, every muscle taut. Fight or flight warring within him, tearing him apart at the seams.

“Jack,” Ben said, his voice like an anchor, grounding him. “Relax.”

Jack met his eye. A question formed in his mouth.

“I’ll do it, Jack.”

Again, the incomprehension, the frown, that little shake of his head. Ben knew a pretender when he saw one. 

“I’ll do it,” he said again. “I’ve missed it. And Jack, you’re…” A quiet sigh escaped him. “I mean, look at you. I would enjoy it, too. Really, I would enjoy it.”

Slowly, slowly, Jack let the pretence slip away, and he moved toward Ben. Ben looked up at him with huge eyes, and when Jack held a ginger hand to his jaw, careful to avoid his various wounds, he leant into it with a desperation that felt jarringly real. 

“You would?” Jack asked.

“Yes. Yes, Jack.”

For a moment, the softness seeping into Jack’s expression chilled Ben to the bone, so full of real tenderness and need.

For a moment, he thought Jack was going to kiss him. 

But Jack didn’t kiss him. 

The sound of the zipper being undone filled the small room, pressing against the walls, and Jack’s face darkened, visibly mortified by his hyper-awareness of the situation. Ben closed his eyes, knowing the privacy would make Jack less anxious, and he was right. Soon, Jack’s fingers slipped between his hair and held him firmly. 

Ben had underestimated how good it would feel, how much he would actually enjoy it. It had been so long. That much was real. It had been so long since anyone had touched him like this. 

A shiver ran up his spine, visible to Jack, and it must have spurred him on. When he opened his eyes, Jack was staring at him with his mouth parted, pupils blown wide. A tremor of restraint ran through both of his hands that he quickly repressed, no doubt from all his years as a surgeon.

There was still doubt there in eyes, though, that little inkling of nagging doubt. On some level, he must have suspected he was being manipulated, somewhere deep and hidden. And on some level, he must have been afraid to succumb to this, this act of which there was no taking back. 

Jack's voice was quieter than Ben had ever heard it, undercut by a slight tremor. He uttered the final words slowly, as though delivering a death sentence. "Are you sure?"

“Jack,” said Ben. The intensity in his eyes could have cut through any fog of doubt. “ _Please_."


	2. Tom

Tom’s fingers tightened painfully in Ben's short, gelled hair, nails scratching against his scalp. 

“Ben, Ben, Ben— Wait— ”

Rolling his eyes skyward, Ben slid off Tom’s wet cock, rubbed the saliva from his mouth with a shirt sleeve, and fixed Tom with a sharp look.

“What?”

“I don’t know...” Tom swallowed. “It’s just, I mean, If Andrew finds us— Or anyone—”

Ben's head shook from side to side in minute little gesticulations while Tom spoke, then interrupted swiftly, “I told you, we’ve got twenty minutes. I altered all the patrols just so I could suck you off in the middle of the jungle like a teenager, so if you’ve got cold feet, you could have told me _before_ I went to all the effort of—”

"Alright, Ben, I know. I just..."

“Are you going to do this every time?”

It was utterly absurd to be saying this with his hand still at the base of Tom’s dick, but Ben had been raised amidst a certain level of absurdity and he had grown into a strange sort of man who, with a strange sort of desperation, sought it out everywhere.

While Tom held his gaze, swallowed thickly, and let his head loll back against the tree, Ben watched him evenly, if hatefully, his lips shining with precum and spittle. He didn’t appreciate being kept waiting. It was lunchtime and Ben’s stomach was rumbling sporadically, as pedantic about good timekeeping as the rest of him.

“I just don’t see why we can’t do this somewhere less open.”

“Oh," Ben deadpanned, "like your house, with your sister in the adjoining room? Or, like my house, with my dad asleep on the sofa?”

Tom sighed, as he sighed every time Ben shot down his objections to the scenic nature of their dalliances. “Just…maybe we could find an empty warehouse or— or something— Ben, if someone catches us, we’re dead. Our jobs...”

“You’re so melodramatic,” Ben mumbled with another little effete wiggle of his head, giving Tom’s cock a light squeeze at the base just to remind him it was there, as if he could forget.

“ _Ah_.” Tom squeezed his eyes shut, half in pleasure and half frustration, then opened them to glance around the dense foliage. Ben was right about it being deserted, and even if it weren’t, he’d chosen a good spot. They were sequestered away among a copse of Banyan trees, hidden by their enormous, skyward-twisting trunks. Nearby, a waterfall roared loud enough to muffle their voices.

It had been a long couple of months since their last encounter and it had proven difficult to arrange this one. The Initiative worked them to the bone and most nights Ben just collapsed miserably in his bed, too tired to make plans and too ill-tempered to put up with Tom and his incessant good cheer.

Luckily, Tom was just as exhausted and twice as tightly wound. When Tom looked back at him, Ben lifted his eyebrows, and knew he’d won from the look of desperation on Tom’s face. 

“Al—Alright,” Tom stuttered out. “Alright, just—”

Ben’s eyebrows rose even higher and he attempted to repress a coy smirk. “Just what?”

A slow whoosh of breath drained from Tom’s nostrils as he attempted to keep the affection out of his eyes. “Just try not to make too much noise.”

A series of hushed barks punctuated the still forest air as Ben indulged in a rare moment of laughter. “I’m not the noisy one, Thomas.”

Before Tom could utter a sardonic response, Ben’s nose bumped against his stomach and the heat of Ben’s tongue burnt the retort to ashes in Tom’s mouth, and from it rose a litany of frenzied noises as Tom succumbed.

*

Ben did not have to hide how hard he was because Jack was not looking at him. 

With one hand anchored atop Ben’s head and the other resting on Ben’s shoulder — the one Jack had, moments ago, been carefully tending to — he thrust with animalistic abandon into Ben’s slack mouth. 

At first, Jack’s movements had been cautious and timid. He’d almost managed to look Ben in the eye as he slid himself against his hot tongue; he’d played the part of the respectful, restrained lover. 

It was not remotely convincing. Not to Ben. Perhaps he fooled others with the act, but Ben could see the darkness in his eyes, clouding his sense, clouding his goodness.

Now, Jack’s eyes were closed and he fucked Ben’s skull like it was a toy. 

For his part, Ben did not take his eyes away from the look on Jack’s face. Guilt was etched deep into every line of it. Endless sweat trickled down his arms and chest. Salt tears and whimpers. 

There was such brutal, bestial violence in his heart. Anger, unbridled. Anger, unleashed. Ben _saw_ Jack, saw him for exactly who he was.

With bound hands, Ben rubbed slowly at his own hardness, careful not to alert Jack to the motion, aching for friction but relishing the cruel lack of it.

Despite appearances, despite what Jack thought, despite the guilt that Jack felt, Ben was in control.

Ben was always in control.

And he felt no guilt.

He felt no guilt.

*

Tom’s weight was heavy and grounding.

It was a relief to be full and held firmly in place, rather than drifting endlessly out of himself. Here, he was a voyeur and a participant, staring hungrily at Tom’s expression, coldly harvesting information from it like a computer, storing it away for safekeeping.

On his knees, Ben was underestimated. Everyone let their guard down in the heat of the moment. Everyone let their secrets pour out of them like blood gushing from an open wound. Everyone opened the darkest parts of their heart up to the blinding daylight from which there was no hiding.

Everyone except Ben.

“Ben…” Tom ground out, legs shaking with the effort of not thrusting. "Ben…"

Frustrated by his reticence, Ben doubled his efforts, his fingers sinking into the flesh of Tom’s ass to spur him on. It had no effect, though; Tom was as stoic and still as the tree against which he leant.

“ _Ben_ ,” he whined again, to which Ben hummed encouragingly. Tom made a strangled noise, his fingers tightening in Ben’s cropped hair, and finally — finally — pressed his hips forward and sunk fully into Ben with a slow groan. 

When he came, his whine was soft and keening and Ben spat the semen into the dew-damp grass like it was poison.

Ben was good at this — he was very, very good — but he only enjoyed the build-up, when he could watch all those secrets spilling out of Tom, when he was hardly there at all. He was less fond of the messy climax.

Unfortunately, it was very easy to unravel Tom. He never lasted long.

Sinking back onto his haunches, Ben began formulating an excuse for the mud and grass stains on his beige cotton pants. With mechanical ease, he swiped more wet dirt from the ground and smeared it in precise streaks across the lengths of his trouser legs, his skinny wrists, his clean shirt. Out the corner of his eye, he watched disinterestedly as Tom slid to the ground, back against the tree trunk, but when Tom looked at him, he fixed a small, forced smile, polite like an acquaintance.

Still catching his breath, Tom said, "They'll never believe it," as he tucked himself back into his pants.

More and more, Tom spoke as if the context of his words was utterly obvious, and Ben suspected, arrogantly, that it was his own subtle influence. 

"Believe what?" he asked.

"That we both fell over. I mean, me, sure. I'm the local oaf. But you?"

Ben snorted at that. It was intended as a compliment but somehow he didn't appreciate it. "I can be clumsy," he said, raising an eyebrow. Tom's disbelieving look prompted him to add, "When I want to be."

Tom laughed, very loudly and very earnestly, and Ben shook away the little droplets of affection that briefly collected in his chest. It was a good laugh, though — Ben had always thought so — and besides that it was rare that anything Ben said could prompt it, so he allowed himself to smile in response. Of course, it was always dangerous to smile around Tom, who mistook it for a sign of affection, and he regretted it immediately.

Before he could intervene, Tom surged forward and wrapped Ben up in his arms, pulling them both backwards against the tree and laughing loudly.

“Tom!”

Ben caught himself on Tom’s shoulders, resisting the embrace as best as he could but stopping suddenly when he saw the look in Tom’s eye. Immediately, he was paralysed by it, paralysed the sweetness and the trust.

When Tom kissed him, Ben could not move.

The sun was bright in the midday sky and it filtered through the canopy like stardust, and the pressure of Tom’s body made him feel safe, and the forest was alight with the chatter of birdsong and insects.

And if this was happiness, Ben didn’t want it, didn’t want it at all.

*

“I hope you don’t mind,” Ben said reticently, as he spat into the dingy sink. “I’ve never been very good at that bit.”

The words fell on deaf ears. When he turned, Jack was perched on the edge of the mattress, his head in his hands. Ben leant back against the sink, and went to grip the cold line of stainless steel before he realised again that his hands were still bound. 

It felt too intrusive to sigh into the difficult silence, but Ben did not want to harbour Jack in this, his only sanctuary, for very much longer.

“That bad?” he said eventually, smiling to himself so that Jack would hear it in his voice.

Jack might have been crying, but he did laugh a little at that. It was kind of a perverse thing to laugh at, Ben thought, for someone supposedly guilt-ridden. 

“No, I—” Jack tried, dragging his hands away from his face and looking dead at Ben. Any trace of mirth in his eyes vanished upon meeting Ben’s eye. “I’m sorry. You’re our—”

 _Prisoner_ , Ben thought. _Say it, you coward._

“I have to go,” Jack said, standing. “I’m sorry, I—I’ll be back to check your— tomorrow—”

“Jack,” he said, but Jack was already leaving, distressed beyond words and running a hand through his cropped hair, the arm that held it there shaking. He didn’t look Ben in the eye again, and then he was gone, the door shutting behind him.

For a long time, Ben didn’t move. He only stared at the empty space Jack had left behind, listening intently to the incoherent shouting and crashing and raging of a man who had finally been handed a mirror and forced to confront what really lived inside of him, deep beneath the illusions and the sweat and the soft surgeon’s hands.

Ben smiled a bitter, triumphant smile.

*

When Tom drew back from the kiss to look at him, Ben knew the truth before it was even uttered.

“I love you,” Tom said, in his deep voice, with his earnest tone. “I wish I didn’t have to hide it.”

It was only shock that prevented Ben from laughing aloud. 

“Well,” Ben replied flatly, once his silence and dead-eyed stare had turned Tom's expression downward, “you do.” It was delivered with a lack of emotion so absolute and so resoundingly empty that it chilled even Ben to hear it fall from his own mouth, and yet he felt no remorse, and he doubted he ever would.

Ben had not been taught love, and so the words were only words, but even he knew that Tom did not really love him, whatever it meant to really love someone. Tom loved a warm body, blowjobs, and lips that did not kiss back. He loved what he wanted Ben to be, not what he was. 

Tom had no idea who Ben was.

Ben stood and left, and as he walked back to camp, he wondered if Richard had been watching, and tried not to feel excited by the prospect that he had.

And he felt vaguely nauseous but no guilt, no guilt at all.

**Author's Note:**

> what's up gamers have you ever had an obsession with an evil rat man since you were 12 and then needed to write about him being a weird slut with one hundred tonnes of emotional baggage 13 years later while you're rewatching LOST
> 
> what do you mean no
> 
> I'm being flippant but truly John and Ben have meant a lot to me for a long time and I have no idea why this is the way I decided to process that
> 
> also follow me on tumblr @gayvillains and don't forget to check out my DOPE playlist if you're so inclined:
> 
> [Ben/Locke](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2m8XFQguvcEgr2anHPij41?si=1iOQw1LSTfOTKNVW670tzA)  
> [Jack/Sawyer](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3hs2yMYSgTo1lyk7UTxq9W?si=zpae7PhlScitTiNzn4EAsg)  
> [Kate](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/17bgkj4SQ2lDbVmRb85ce7?si=-8qTjWj8RMaXlmS8z1woKg)


End file.
